De-eroticizing the Inner Chamber: Zhou Qi's Ekphrastic Colophon in Lady at Dressing Table by Wang Qiao

Abstract This article explores the intricate interplay between a seventeenth-century meiren hua 美人畫 portraiture by Wang Qiao 汪喬 (fl. seventeenth century) and an ekphrastic poetic colophon by Zhou Qi 周綺 (1814–1861), a gentry woman poet of the nineteenth century. The analysis reveals Zhou Qi's maneuvering to counteract the male voyeurism embedded in Wang Qiao's painting, a remnant of the courtesan culture prevalent in the late Ming and early Qing periods. The article argues that Zhou Qi's poem deconstructs the male gaze and reinforces the values of womanly conduct and virtue in High Qing society. This case study sheds light on how gentry women, during the second high tide of women's writing, distanced themselves from the earlier courtesan writing of the first high tide and renegotiated their autonomy within the moral sphere. They also addressed the enduring tension between talent and virtue in women's writing in late imperial China.